


The Trouble With Commas

by codenametargeter



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: M/M, Post-War, actually no I'm not all that sorry, background Dorothea/Ingrid - Freeform, no beta we die like Glenn, with apologies to Hamilton
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-26
Updated: 2020-05-26
Packaged: 2021-03-03 03:07:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,406
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24377710
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/codenametargeter/pseuds/codenametargeter
Summary: In which Dimitri has awful handwriting, Felix panics about grammar, Dorothea enjoys all of this more than she should, and Ingrid would very much like to be excluded from this narrative.
Relationships: Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd/Felix Hugo Fraldarius
Comments: 7
Kudos: 85





	The Trouble With Commas

**Author's Note:**

> With my sincerest apologies to Lin-Manuel Miranda and Hamilton. But also.... this is the nonsense that happens when sumaru texts you "MY DEAREST FELIX" and your immediate response is "COMMA AFTER DEAREST" and you have to explain things. 
> 
> I'm still figuring out writing the characters in this fandom. I'll get there.

“Your Grace? Is everything alright?”

Felix’s head snapped up and he glared. “Why wouldn’t it be?”

The corporal’s eyes widened and he took an unconscious step backwards. “You’ve uhh… you’ve been staring at that piece of parchment since I walked in here five minutes ago.”

“That’s because it’s important,” Felix said, curling it up and moving it out of sight. Technically speaking, that was true. All messages from the king automatically fell into that category. “What do you want?”

“It’s the reports, sir, from the scouts.”

“Leave them with the rest.” He nodded towards the pile on the corner of his makeshift desk and pretended to study the nearest map until the corporal left his tent and he was alone again. Sighing, Felix leaned back in his seat and pinched the bridge of his nose. He wasn’t even out of his twenties yet and he was already starting to feel like he was far older than the years implied. Technically, the war had been over for two years now but little pockets of rebellion continued to pop up here and there across the continent and as the king’s shield, he found himself marching off to deal with them more often than not. At least this time, they’d made camp not far from Enbarr which meant he’d been able to call upon several of their former classmates to join their efforts in addition to Ingrid and Ashe who’d accompanied their forces south. 

All of that felt absurdly simple compared to the letter he’d been staring at for quite possibly half an hour before the corporal had yanked him out of his thoughts. 

Carefully, Felix unrolled the parchment again and smoothed it down against the desk. Dimitri’s handwriting stared right back up at him. It was messier than one might expect from a king which was exactly where the problem stemmed from.

 _My dearest Felix_. Or did it say, _My dearest, Felix_?

Commas. He suddenly hated commas. Maybe it wasn’t even supposed to be a comma and was just a wayward mark of ink. Or maybe it really was a comma in which case, that meant--

No. That couldn’t be it. Dimitri would never-- Yes, their friendship had been greatly repaired over the last few years. Felix hadn’t called him ‘boar’ in over a dozen months and he was often at Dimitri’s side when he was in the capitol. But that didn’t mean… What the hell was Dimitri playing at?

It didn’t help that the rest of the letter gave him no indication as to whether the comma was real with its mix of official and personal news and updates. That was normal for Dimitri’s correspondence as was the occasional tendency to write more than just his name in the first line.

Groaning, he sat back again and glared upwards. He was going to have to get a second opinion which in itself was going to be torture. The Blue Lions and everyone who’d joined their house later were an… eclectic bunch to say the least. Felix started mentally running through the list of those at the camp. Caspar was out and so was Ashe. The latter would probably approach it more delicately than the former but he had a tendency to fall too far forward into a romanticized version of chivalry. He would rather die than show it to Ferdinand so that was another name off the list. Which left… 

He was going to regret this. The entire conversation was going to be painful but if she could help him figure it out…

Sighing one last time, Felix rose to his feet and shoved the parchment into a pocket. He might as well get this over with.

People nodded to him as he made his way through the camp with purpose but no one actually called out to him. Mercedes said it had to do with his resting facial expression which apparently made him unapproachable. He saw no reason to make it make any effort to change it and not just because it was occasionally useful. When he reached the tent he was looking for, he paused outside its entrance and took a deep, steadying breath. He raised his voice just loudly enough to be heard by its occupants. “A moment of your time?”

“Come in, Felix,” came the response. 

He pushed aside the flap and ducked only slightly to step inside. Unsurprisingly, both Dorothea and Ingrid were seated inside, the latter sitting on the ground cleaning her sword while the former was perched on a cot behind her and seemed to be doing something with her hair. “I don’t know why you don’t wear it down more often,” Dorothea said. “You have such lovely hair, Ingrid.”

“I can’t fight with it down,” Ingrid said in the tone that said they’d had this conversation before. She ran the polishing cloth down the length of the blade one last time before looking up. “Hello, Felix. Did you need me?”

“I…” The words stuck in his throat and the paper burned hot against his chest. “No. Actually, I was looking for Dorothea. I need…” He flushed and half turned. “This is ridiculous. I should--”

“Sit down, Felix,” Dorothea said with that hint of steel in her voice that always caught him by surprise. It was embarrassing how quickly he followed her order and so he glowered to try and cover it. It didn’t work though. It never seemed to work around her. “Now. What did you want to talk about?” 

“This doesn’t leave us,” Felix said before looking Ingrid right in the eye. “And that includes Sylvain. And especially Dimitri.”

That made both of her eyebrows shoot straight upwards in surprise. There wasn’t much that stayed a secret amongst their quartet of childhood friends. “I… of course.”

“You have my discretion as well,” Dorothea said.

He was running out of excuses to avoid talking about the stupid letter which left him with one option: talking. “I’m not sure how to interpret the opening of this letter I received.” With a small smile on her face, Dorothea extended her hand towards him and he dropped the letter into it. “It’s a question of… punctuation.”

She shifted over on the cot so Ingrid could sit beside her as they looked at it together. “Oh my,” Dorothea murmured softly. “Ingrid, my darling, why do you never write me letters that start like this? If Dimitri can make the time with all of his kingly responsibilities…” 

Felix frowned. “Why do you think it’s from Dimitri?” 

“Am I wrong?”

He folded his arms across his chest. “No.”

“Mm.” He could have sworn there was a gleam in her green eyes as she lowered them back to the parchment. “His Majesty’s handwriting really is quite wretched. I’m surprised he didn’t have tutors for this sort of thing.”

Felix snorted. “He did. They didn’t work.”

Carefully, Dorothea raised the letter closer to her face, turning it this way and that. “I can see the source of your confusion. That could be a comma.”

Ingrid shifted. “What difference does it make?”

“Why, the entire world,” Dorothea said. Ingrid’s expression of confusion didn’t change and so she sighed and gestured towards Felix with a bit of dramatic flair. “My dearest Felix.” She pointed towards Ingrid. “My dearest, Ingrid,” she said, overemphasizing the pause and putting feeling into the words. “Do you see?” 

This was somehow worse than Felix had thought it was going to be. 

Dorothea unrolled more of the parchment and scanned the benign contents. “Does he usually address letters to you like this?”

“Uhm,” Felix said.

“If we had more to compare this to…”

“I destroy them after I read them,” Felix lied. One glance at Dorothea showed that she knew he was lying so he just glowered even harder and doubled down. Beside her, Ingrid looked like she wanted to be anywhere but that tent. “If enemy spies got their hands on them, they could replicate the king’s seal.”

“Felix, I can’t help you if you don’t--”

“This is stupid!” He didn’t remember getting to his feet but planted them anyways. “It’s just a stupid smudge.” 

“Unless it is a comma.” 

“Just forget I even brought it up,” Felix said, snatching the letter back. 

Dorothea rose to her feet and took one of his hands in both of hers. In her heels, they were close to the same height which meant he had nowhere to look but right at her. “How many other people do you think Dimitri addresses letters to like that?”

“How should I know?”

“He doesn’t to me,” Ingrid broke in from where she stayed seated on her cot. Immediately, she flushed and shifted uncomfortably as they both turned to look at her. “And I don’t think he does to Sylvain either.” 

His lips curled into a sneer. “How often does he even write either of you? I’m the one always in the field fighting his war.” 

Ingrid inhaled sharply through her nose but didn’t say anything else. 

“Maybe,” Dorothea jabbed him sharply in the chest with one finger, “you should figure out whether you want it to be a comma.” She paused. “Elsewhere.” 

“Fine,” Felix said through gritted teeth. He could recognize a dismissal when he heard one and he was self-aware enough to realize that he deserved it. That didn’t mean he was going to apologize though. He hadn’t changed _that_ much. “We have the war council in two hours.” 

“Enjoy your studying,” Dorothea said to his back as he left the tent, her tone that irritatingly light and cheerful one that had always driven him crazy. 

Two hours. He had two hours to put this stupid letter out of his mind and focus on important things. If they handled this next battle right, he could be on his way back to former Kingdom territory within two weeks. The sooner he was there, the sooner he wouldn’t have to worry about any more letters from the king. 

“Felix!”

He stopped in his tracks and turned to see Ingrid jogging to catch up with him. “What?”

“Talk to him,” Ingrid said once she was close enough to speak quietly so they wouldn’t be overheard. “When we get get back to Fhirdiad… please just talk to him.”

“I’ll think about it,” Felix said gruffly. “We have a rebellion to stomp out first.”

For a moment, he thought she was going to say something else but instead, she just nodded curtly. “My pegasus knights will be ready.”

Felix nodded and then continued on his way. At least that was one thing he knew for certain. 

The war council went well and the subsequent battles even better with as few casualties as he could have possibly hoped for. The idiotic lordling who drummed up support had been captured along with his main co-conspirators. The last Felix had seen them, the three nobles were in Ferdinand’s custody and being subjected to a lecture on the responsibilities of nobility and how utterly they had failed. He sent a messenger ahead to Fhirdiad with a victory report, knowing the rider would beat the army back with plenty of time to spare, and used his evening as they made the slow trek back to work on his full report. 

Someone must have told more than the king that they were returning victorious because the gates were flung open with people cheering as they drew closer. 

“This is pointless,” Felix grumbled quietly enough so that only Ingrid who rode beside him could hear. She’d lingered in Enbarr an extra two days before using her pegasus’s speed to catch up. 

“They need something to celebrate,” Ingrid said with a much more pleasant expression on her face. She hadn’t said a word about the stupid potential comma since he’d stomped out of Dorothea’s tent and he was grateful for that. 

“That’s what they have a king for.”

“Dimitri can’t be everything to them.”

Those six words brought some decidedly uncomfortable feelings back up and so Felix kept his mouth shut as they rode through the gates, managing a nod here and there. None of that seemed to bother the people who cheered as their company marched into the city. Through the cacophony, he could make out some distinct phrases including both his and Ingrid’s houses and ‘the king’s shield!’ That alone was enough to make him want to put his hood up and slip into the city unnoticed through a different gate. It made sense when they cheered like this for Dimitri but for him… Pointless.

Perhaps it shouldn’t have been a surprise that Dimitri and some of their other friends were in the palace courtyard to greet them but Felix still flinched upon seeing them. All he could see was that stupid comma-smudge and that stupid letter and _why_ did Dimitri have to be here now? 

Dimitri’s smile was broad and his hands held wide. “Duke Fraldarius! Sir Ingrid! Sir Ashe! Welcome home!”

There was no getting out of it now but maybe he took a little more time getting off his horse (it wasn’t like he liked riding anyways) and taking those four steps that would bring him close enough to not raise questions. “Your Majesty,” Felix said, thumping his fist against his chest and bowing low. As he straightened back up, he found Dimitri looking straight at him with that same smile that somehow felt more personal and he flushed and floundered around for something to say. “The situation in Enbarr has been dealt with. Your Majesty’s country is secure again.”

“So your messenger told me.” Dimitri took two steps towards them, dropping his arms down but arching both eyebrows up curiously. “So formal, Felix?”

He folded his arms across his chest. “You started it.”

“So I did,” Dimitri said with a laugh. “Ingrid, you’ve been missed,” he said, stepping forward to kiss the blonde lightly on the cheek. 

“Enbarr wasn’t all bad,” Ingrid replied, “but I’m happy to be off the road again.”

Next he turned to the man on Ingrid’s other side and clasped forearms with him. “Ashe, it’s good to see you. It’s been too long.”

“Sorry, Your Majesty,” Ashe said with a smile. “I’ll try and make it back here more often.”

It was entirely Felix’s own fault when Dimitri finally turned that focused look back at him again. They could’ve just said those first hellos but no, Felix had had to say something and now Dimitri was extending a hand towards him. “Felix, welcome home.”

“I have a full report for you,” Felix said as they clasped arms. Was Dimitri lingering longer than usual or was it all just in his head? 

“That can wait. I’m sure you’re tired from the road.” 

“I’d rather deliver it now.” There went his stupid traitorous mouth again.

“I can handle the horses,” Ingrid offered.

“I’ll help,” Sylvain said as he slung a companionable arm around Ingrid’s shoulder which she only rolled her eyes at but didn’t move away from. He, Dedue, and Mercedes had hung back initially but drawn closer as the formality had been tossed aside. “But hey, don’t think this gets you out of coming to the feast tonight.”

Felix spun around to give Dimitri a look of pure betrayal. “You didn’t.”

At least the king had the grace to look guilty. “It’s something worth celebrating, Felix.”

“But the expense--”

“Don’t worry, it’s nothing extravagant,” Dimitri waved off his concern. “Really, it’s more of a large dinner than anything.”

“That’s exactly what a feast is.”

Mercedes broke in with, “I helped plan it. It is a perfectly reasonable amount of food for a reasonable number of guests.”

That cut his next argument off at the knees. If there was one person whom Felix trusted to show common sense about these sorts of things, it was Mercedes. “Fine,” he said with obvious reluctance to which Mercedes simply beamed at him. He turned back to Dimitri. “Can we discuss this in your office?”

“Of course, Felix,” Dimitri said, inclining his head towards the rest of their friends. “Please excuse us everyone.”

As he grabbed the roll of parchment from his saddle bags and made his way into the castle side by side with Dimitri, Felix could feel Ingrid’s eyes boring a hole into his back. He just knew that she’d be spending the next few days watching his every move to see if anything came of that stupid letter and that she’d then tell Dorothea if she noticed anything and sometimes, Felix wondered if maybe he didn’t need to have friends. Just his sword. 

“I hope this will be the last of them for awhile,” Dimitri said as he led them through the maze of corridors towards his office. “With winter approaching, I’m not sure how we’ll muster an army to deal with a problem so far from here.” 

Felix shrugged. “We can handle snow. It just won’t be very fast going.” He fell silent for a few seconds before adding, “We have allies in the south who might be willing to help.” 

“Indeed. The professor turned the Blue Lions into quite a network across Fodlan for us. Or rather,” he shook his head, “I suppose I should say the archbishop. Old habits die hard.”

“Mm,” Felix responded. Thankfully, the king seemed content for them to walk the rest of the way in silence which admittedly wasn’t all that far. The courtyard they’d been directed to was by the royal wing of the palace. 

The silence felt decidedly _less_ comfortable as they passed by the guards and stepped into the office and the heavy wooden door swung shut behind them. If anything, it felt like a trap of his own making and he couldn’t get the sound of Ingrid’s voice saying _just talk to him_ out of his head. 

“I take it that’s your written report,” Dimitri said, taking his seat behind his desk. 

“Yes,” Felix said, placing it on the wooden surface and folding his arms across his chest as he stepped back. “It’s like the others and has a full accounting of troop numbers, losses, and such. I also included the results of the leaders’ interrogation. It seems to have been self-contained though.”

“I’m glad to hear it.” Dimitri pulled the report towards him but made no move to unroll it. “I hope this means this will be coming to an end. I never expected the unification of Fodlan to go completely smoothly but after two years, I think we’re all ready to be done fighting.”

If he shifted just the right way, he could feel the crinkle of paper inside his surcoat where he had, for some bizarre reason, taken to keeping the letter that had caused all of this nonsense. He wasn’t entirely sure _why_ he kept it there but it was there and he could feel it like it was burning a hole through his shirt and straight to his heart. He wished he had never read it and never noticed that stupid smudge and never gone to ask Dorothea if--

“Felix?” The sound of Dimitri’s voice jolted him out of his own mind. Dimitri was staring at him, brow furrowed. “Is everything quite alright?”

There was no decision to speak; only his traitorous mouth opening of its own accord and speaking words he had no intention whatsoever of iterating. “Was that supposed to be a comma in your last letter?”

Dimitri’s lone eye blinked in surprise. “What?”

“Your letter,” Felix said, apparently completely committed to this goddess cursed path now. He yanked it out and slammed it down on the desk, jabbing his finger to point at the first line. “Is that a comma or a smudge?”

“I…” Dimitri pulled the parchment towards him and pressed his lips together as he looked at it.

“And what’s even with that phrasing anyways?”

“You must know that you are dear to me, Felix,” Dimitri said with more seriousness than one might have expected to. 

That brought him to a screeching halt. “What?”

“After all this time, I thought that would have been clear.”

“I…” Felix wanted to run out of the room but he couldn’t because now his feet had turned traitor too. 

Dimitri took one last look at the letter before meeting his gaze again. “I recall my intention but can I ask why this seems to bother you so?”

“It changes the meaning of the phrase,” Felix said, trying to gather whatever scraps were left of his dignity and failing. Everything had been so much easier when they had been students at the Academy and he could hide behind his disdain of the boar and not have to confront any of this. Dimitri had simply called him Felix and the word dearest wasn’t in their vocabulary at all, comma be damned. 

Slowly, Dimitri rose to his feet and stepped out from behind his desk and Felix turned to face him, entire body tense as the blond closed the space between them. He’d never felt more acutely aware of just how much taller Dimitri than was him. “It was,” he said slowly, “intended to be a comma.”

“Oh,” Felix said. 

It was impossible to tell if time had slowed down or Dimitri was just moving impossibly slowly as he carefully raised a hand up to cup Felix’s cheek, brilliant blue eye never leaving his. “My dearest, Felix.” Oh there was absolutely a difference in how Dimitri said the words. The comma was audible. 

Their faces were so close together now that he wasn’t entirely sure which one of them finally closed the distance so their lips met in a kiss that started out hesitant but quickly became something more. Dimitri’s other arm wrapped around him, bringing them flush together, and Felix’s hand both found their way into Dimitri’s hair, pulling him closer and tugging a little. The sound Dimitri made went straight to his groin so Felix did it again and a little harder this time. He barely even noticed when Dimitri turned them so that Felix’s rear was bumping right against the edge of the desk and he was arched backwards over its surface. 

“I…” Dimitri sounded distinctly uncertain for some strange reason as their lips parted. “Perhaps I shouldn’t have presumed before I--”

“Shut up,” Felix said before leaning up to kiss him again so he didn’t have a choice about the matter. That went on for a little while longer and made the last few years feel like they had been completely wasted by not doing this. When they broke apart again, he said, “You should have said something.”

Abashedly, Dimitri said, “I thought… I thought you knew and were just… so I addressed my letters as such.”

“And your atrocious handwriting nearly ruined the entire effort.” 

“I’ve been working on it.”

“No, you haven’t.”

“Yes, well…” If this conversation was any indication, apparently their new method for making the other person stop talking was kissing them and this was going to make for some awkward council meetings.

Eventually, Dimitri dropped his hands back down to his sides and took a step backwards, letting Felix stand on his own two feet instead of leaning against the desk. “I suppose we should talk about this before things go any further.”

“I’m _not_ talking about my feelings,” Felix said with a bit more heat than he intended. 

Dimitri let out a sound of amusement that wasn’t quite a laugh. “Trust me, Felix, that was not my intention.”

“Good,” he said, raking a hand through his hair that had escaped its tie. “What then?”

“I would… presume we would both prefer to keep this… development between us for now,” Dimitri said slowly and deliberately in the tone he tended to use in diplomatic negotiations. 

It was almost enough to make Felix laugh but he didn’t. Instead, he nodded. “You presume correctly.”

“Selfishly, I’d like to keep you to myself and away from the court’s gossip for as long as I can.”

There was absolutely no way Felix could have predicted how it would feel to hear Dimitri speak even somewhat possessively about him but it made him feel uncomfortably warm and to want to kiss him again. “And our friends’ gossip too. In case this doesn’t…”

He didn’t have to finish the sentence for Dimitri to figure out what he meant and nod. “Precisely. Although it is my hope that such concern is unnecessary. However, all that said…” Dimitri’s cheeks were a bit pink. “If you’re inclined to come to my chambers after the feast, you would find the door unlocked.”

Felix cleared his throat, trying to will himself into not blushing. “I’ll consider it,” he said even though he already knew he’d be there. 

“I… that would make me very happy, Felix.” He looked so damned earnest that it was almost enough to feel like all of the years had melted away and they were just Dima and Fe from before everything had changed and dragged them through hell. But they weren’t. Hell had happened and the war too and it was the only reason they were standing in this room together, staring at each other and clearly struggling to keep their hands to themselves right now. 

“Have we talked enough yet?” Felix asked, making his intentions as clear as he could.

Dimitri nodded. “Yes, I think so. Unless… your report?”

“Screw my report,” Felix said before lunging forward and kissing him again.

He never did get around to delivering the verbal version of his report that day. It seemed relatively unimportant in the grand scheme of things. The written one was still there for later. 

They took great care to straighten their clothing, fix their hair, and to spend at least some time not together. For the sake of appearances, of course. And because Felix desperately wanted to wash the grime of the road off before being forced to sit through a feast. None of that stopped Ingrid from giving him a knowing smile as he and Dimitri walked into the feast together later that night and he knew exactly what would be in the next letter she wrote to a certain songstress. Another time, it might have irritated him but at that precise moment, it felt a fair trade. And it was the farthest thing from his mind when Felix quietly opened the door to Dimitri’s chambers much later than evening and then let it shut behind him.


End file.
